DUBLIN — Conor McGregor has quit without landing a blow in his doomed bid to become Ireland’s next president.
The Dublin-born mixed martial arts fighter, who now spends much of his online time decrying immigration, long had vowed to win a place on the ballot for the Oct. 24 election.
To become eligible, McGregor required official nominations from at least four of Ireland’s 31 councils. Yet, after months of huffing and puffing online, he didn’t even attempt to clear that low bar.
Instead, he quit in an online missive Monday to avoid suffering a likely technical knockout at the hands of Dublin City Council.
The council had been due to convene within hours to hear McGregor’s in-person appeal for their support. He had secured backing from only a few anti-immigration councilors, while dozens had pledged to reject him. The fighter had secured less, if any, support from other councils.
Reflecting the lack of real-world seriousness of his campaign, McGregor didn’t even travel to Dublin and issued his submission statement from the United States.
McGregor blamed “the straitjacket of an outdated Constitution” for his failure to get on the ballot. He didn’t mention the 2024 court judgment finding him civilly liable for raping a Dublin woman, nor his more recent failed effort to overturn that ruling using two withdrawn witnesses now being investigated for alleged perjury.
Ireland’s 1937 constitution does require presidential candidates to secure nominations either from four councils or 20 members of the Oireachtas, Ireland’s two-chamber parliament. McGregor failed to win even a single nomination from Ireland’s 234 national lawmakers.
However, McGregor’s bid for the Irish presidency — during which he won a visit to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House and was given copious long-distance support from X owner Elon Musk — likewise failed to garner any significant backing from the Irish public.
The latest opinion poll, published Sunday in the Business Post, dumped McGregor into the humiliating “others” category with less than 2 percent support.
It was an inglorious end for a candidate who, only a few days beforehand, claimed that “the great indigenous of Ireland” would be “swarmed” by foreigners unless he was elected president — a largely ceremonial post with no say in setting government policy.
“I do not say it lightly nor do I say it braggadociously,” he wrote then.
McGregor’s withdrawal — following similarly expected exits by Riverdance star Michael Flatley and disgraced ex-Prime Minister Bertie Ahern — leaves Ireland’s presidential election a three-horse race between Heather Humphreys of the governing Fine Gael party, the independent socialist Catherine Connolly and Jim Gavin of the other major government party, Fianna Fáil.
But the field may grow more crowded ahead of the Sept. 24 cutoff for nominations.
Several independent candidates are still seeking council nominations. A Catholic social conservative, anti-abortion campaigner Maria Steen, is also still trying to cobble together 20 votes from parliamentarians. And the main opposition Sinn Féin party is set to decide Saturday whether to run its own candidate or throw its weight behind Connolly.
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